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Who is the Head of Your Polygamous Family? Q&A

Being muslim, I have some questions to the blogkeeper. I do not intend disrespect and I do understand if you find my questions too private. I respect of course if you do not answer anything that may be too close.

It seems to me in polygamy, somebody must be the leader. Somebody must have the final call if there are conflicts of wishes, time or jealousy. In Islam the man is the leader. He has the final say and it is his responsibility to keep peace and harmony in the marriages. I wonder, in your marriages, is this your role? Or are your husbands still the leaders in marriage? Maybe they solve conflicts between them since you live close together?

When your husbands want things that conflict, to whom do you submit? I see you have a child with your second husband, how would you have solved it if your first husband wanted a child too, at the same time?

If two wives argue and scream and threaten each other, the husband is always strong enought to make them calm down and give in to his will. What do you do if your husbands fight?

I am sorry if this question offends, but if both your husbands have wish for intimacy, does it not make you feel tired and worn out? And how can you cope with two men if they want you at the same time? And is it not embarassing to go to your one husband with plainly traces of ghusl so he can see what you have done with the other?

I truly wish you well. But I must say I find this way of living strange. Please forgive me.

33 thoughts on “Who is the Head of Your Polygamous Family? Q&A”

I guess Fiona will be back to answer your questions, but in the meantime I’ll put my two cents in. I’m a polygamous woman living with two husbands in Omaha. I divorced my first husband when I met my second but it broke my heart. After a year we decided, all of us, to give it a go to live together polygamously and be a family. I loved both my husbands, and now our children have a complete family. It’s worked out perfectly.
Does there need to be a head of the family? Well, since no husband can force me to spend my time with him, stay in his bed, or give in to his idea about something I guess sometimes I have to make a decision since I can’t split myself in two. So yeah, in that way I’m the head of the decisions I make. Is that what you’re asking about. There’s a lot of talking in our family since we want everything to be settled, nothing to be swept under the carpet. Most of the time we agree on what is right. That isn’t always the same thing as getting my way in everything, sometimes I want things that are simply selfish, not right. SO, I give in. Sometimes I act on my selfishness. And I pay dearly, becaus it hurts somebody I love. You don’t have to believe in a god to be able to see right from wrong, and regret it when you’re wrong.

Oftentimes, my husbands settle conflicts between them. They don’t need me as an arbitrary. When I do wrong, I’m likely to get hell from both of them. We talk. We solve matters. We are three grown peopla in a relationship, not two people following a leader.

If my husbands ever fought, ha the thought just has me rolling with laughter, I’d probably just throw a bucket of water at them, that’d make them stop! 🙂

As for intimacy, the urge is mostly built up over time. On a day when I’m supposed to stay in one husband’s bed, we often touch each other fondly in the evening (never in front of the other husband!!!), smile. We go to our bedroom and talk, feel close, hug and kiss, watch some TV in bed and feel the pleasure of each other’s company and the thought of intimacy grows over the evening until we want to make love. That the other husband would come barging in, suddenly overwhelmed by an irresistable urge to have sex there and then is quite frankly ludicrous, and also sad – that anybody would see that as the natural way lovemaking and libido works. Just sad.

I take a shower every morning and every evening, so no, it doesn’t embarass me to turn up with my hair wet. And you know, both my husbands know I have a lovelife with them both. I don’t rub it in their faces, but I also know that they enjoy our lifestyle and would be very worried if I lost the intimate connection with the other husband.

When I first read it I thought it said Hamish, which is a Scottish name 🙂 So I thought the guy might be from the UK. But when I read it more carefully I saw it says Harish. So yes, that’s the name he gave.

The original post contains a number of saddening assumptions:
1. Husbands will use their physical strength to control wives
2. If a husband wants sex the wife is expected to succomb immediately

In misogynist communities the complete inability to empathise with women is what underlies so many problems. The men don’t think for a minute how it would feel to be in a woman’s position because they just don’t have to. Society preserves their privilege as men.

hmm I think especially the last question: “if both your husbands have wish for intimacy, does it not make you feel tired and worn out? And how can you cope with two men if they want you at the same time? ” would be more an issue for a man than a woman 😉

I’m also wondering how this sentence can be interpreted “If two wives argue and scream and threaten each other, the husband is always strong enought to make them calm down and give in to his will.” @lifeisgood: I think you are right this can only be true if the husband is using his physical strength…

It is unbelievable that so many men have such narrow minded views about gender roles and sexuality. I think Patriarchy is world’s biggest problem. More i think about it more i can see clearly how many problems in world arise from patriarchy e.g. unsustainable modern lifestyle is mainly a result of men not sharing equal responsibilities at home. When we look for shortcuts those are generally practices that are unhealthy, generate more waste, consume more fossil fuels etc. I doubt there will be as many wars and violence if men and women play equal role in leading families, communities and countries.
Men and women are different but that doesn’t mean one group can have more rights over other. I recently had discussion with a cousin and it took a lot of effort to explain that you don’t have to be equal/same or possess equal physical strength etc to deserve equal rights. Most common example they come up with is general difference in physical strength. I give them this example that if there are two brothers in a family. One is big and strong and the other is short/skinny. Should the skinny one stay home, help his mom with house work and never roam outside late in night and the stronger one be allowed to stay out late, not be asked to help with housework but only for outside work like farm work. Older men/women just brush this aside and say “come on this is not how its done men do mens jobs and women do women’s jobs”! but most younger people get the point with this example. Please share any other good example that you know of.
ps: I am now infamous among friends and family for taking every discussion toward gender descrimination/patriarchy 🙂

What amazes me is that this statement “And how can you cope with two men if they want you at the same time? And is it not embarassing to go to your one husband with plainly traces of ghusl so he can see what you have done with the other?” can be re written with gender roles swapped. Why wouldn’t that situation will not cause embarrassment.

Islamic polygyny wouldn’t work if it wasn’t built on viewing the man as the head of the household. Many people in the West can actually feel ok about polyamory, as long as it’s voluntary and practiced among equal adults. We might not feel that way inclined ourselves, but we don’t really have a problem with other people choosing that lifestyle. So the poly-thing in itself isn’t the problem, unless of course you have some basic ethical feeling about it, eg based on religion. What makes people go totally through the roof about FLDS polygyny is the fact that the man can be polyamorous, but not the wives. The inequality of it bugs the shit out of most of us. And of course islam is even worse from an egalitarian point of view since it states that not only is the man in charge of his wife, not only does he have a right to polyamory while she does not, but he also has a right to divorce that she lacks and a right to be polyamorous without her consent or knowledge. I mean, that last part is simply soooooo far off any kind of basic human ethics that we simply can’t accept it if we have any kind of free will of thought and morals.

So I just love the way you live polygamy Fiona. Equal, caring and honest polygamy. Not for me though, it seems like a tough job! 🙂

Well, if you look at Robin Salome’s latest post, it’s so hilariously obvious that she isn’t getting any… 😉 She been on for years now about it not being John’s fault that he’s polygamous – now she’s all about it not being a husband’s fault if he can’t make it in bed. Obviously that soldierman is having problems with the erection and now Robin is angry and has decided that all women must know that they must give up their wish for sex if Allah doesn’t let their husbands get a hard on 😀 😀 This is just tooooo funny!

Ha ha Olivia! we wont leave that blog alone its just like a train wreck you just can’t help your self 🙂
i read that too but i feel its both John and Robin. Maybe she herself wasn’t making the effort initially. Remember all the talk she does on polygamy is like a wake up call for some wives and they start making more effort to spice things up. Guess who she is talking about

Good to know that Olivia. At least it is getting more obvious the mental state from which Robin spews out her advice. But then I still see women like lemmings seeking her advice. I feel sorry particularly for the women who seek her out of the place of dis-empowerment and fear.

That whole thread makes me really uncomfortable Olivia. She pretty much admits polygamy sucks and the men treat their wives like rubbish, so she twists the quran to try and make up excuses to stay married without going insane. One woman actually posted that years ago the blog was all about womens rights etc and now its much better cos its about learning to live with men that refuse to do that! Wow.

Also notice how sad the stories of women and their co-wives are. Women crying day and night and Robin is conditioning them by saying see this is normal! we all do this. I have done this many others have done this but soon you will learn to detach yourself from husband and will stop feeling any pain. She doesn’t realize that everyone cannot live like that. People have brains and they can think intelligently. The only one good thing i see with this craziness in women’s favor is that women can use it to fell some level of control in this most fucked up situation by telling their husband he isn’t their lord and they aren’t going to worship him or compete for affections (easier said than done). Its Allah who they worship. Like Mari 2 is doing. Thats their only little power they can demonstrate to protect otherwise all real power lies with the man who plays with both wives emotions. Mari 2’s husband is saying things to make her jealous and isn’t even trying to hide his desire to see two wives fighting over him. What a loser.

Sometimes I actually wish my husband had wanted to be the head of the family. Because maybe then he would have had to assume responsibility for the harm he has caused. As it is, he is all about equal partnership and equal leadership, except he has claimed the right to polygamy which means he has kept the right to create chaos to himself, but claims that we all are equally responsible to make this chaos work….

Funny how that works, isn’t it? -_- Mine was and is an imbecile and always acted so aghast when shit spiraled out of control – the shit HE stirred. Then accused US of being unreasonable, of playing “mind games” with him when he was called upon to take a look at the big steaming pile of crap he laid. OMG.

Amir, if you are talking about Fiona, she would probably be able to marry ten husbands, and be more just to them than men can be with four. But she doesn’t want to. And she knows the inherent pain present in polygamy very well too. But if all the men promised to be obedient to her and cater to her every need and be promised heaven for it, and she just barely gave into the selfish desire of it like many men do, she might change her mind about it 😀